Rebranding: 542 Entertainment Inc has a fresh new look!

Branding is such a tricky little word.

The truth is, the majority of us don't really know how to properly brand ourselves or companies.

There are so many gurus out there telling you what to do and how to do it that it becomes very confusing and overwhelming.

To simplify it, your brand really has to speak to the core of your values. What does your company feel like when people interact with it. Do they feel excited, do they feel serious do they feel powerful? Those are all things that you need to consider when creating a brand for yourself or for a company.

I've got to admit that branding and marketing always been something that's intrigued my interest as a business owner.

In 2020 we decided we were going to start rebranding our company, 542 Entertainment.

Now, we've been around for seven years, so why would we change our name and our brand? Our brand did not really explain what we do nor did it show who we were as humans. It was time to showcase who we really are, what we do and why we do it. Here’s how we did it.

DEFINE: We needed to define exactly what we do.

We are a full-service festival and live experience production company and offer everything someone needs to build a festival or experience from the ground up. People can choose to piece-meal our services or work with us to fully to bring their vision to life.

Our original name 542 Entertainment came from the first festival I ever built when I was 23 years old. It was a festival on the 542 road to Mount Baker, where I cut my teeth as an entrepreneur and producer and learned all of the things to do and not to do while building a festival. Although that name and that experience are so dear to my heart, my customers really didn’t know what it stands for until I tell the story. So that's when we decided it's time to rebrand and launch the festival company.

RESEARCH: We needed to know what people were looking for.

Before we decided on a name, I looked into what people would Google when they were looking for a company like ours. Not to our surprise, the main search is ‘festival companies’.So the name ‘The Festival Company’ made absolute sense to us.

TONE OF VOICE & FEEL: We needed our tone to be authentic to the service we would provide.

As we navigated through building our new website and all of our new services, we had a lot to consider. Instead of doing fancy copywriting, I thought that I would just really speak in my own tone of voice as the owner and the face of the company. I'm not a fancy human being and I like straightforward pricing. I don't like it when there's hidden fees or hidden markups, so I thought my potential customers probably feel the exact same way. That's why everything that we have on the festival company website is 100% transparent on what the fees are so you know how much to budget for each service. Branding is extremely important. Stick to what you would want if you were a customer - how do you want to be spoken too? What do you want to feel like when engaging with a brand? If I am working with a service provider I want to feel excited, I want to know that they are on my team and that I’m not being gauded by add ons or markups. Plus, Festivals and Live events are FUN so I wanted our colours to really pop and bring excitement to the brand. We decided on funky patters and a loud hot pink to make our brand as large as our personalities!

HUMANITY: Want to go a step further? Define what you stand for and show how you support it. 

At The Festival Company, we believe that every child deserves to shoot for the stars and chase ‘impossible’ dreams, and that’s why we support The SuperHero League, an organization dedicated to funding education, music, sports and experiences for children to see what’s possible in the world and shooting for the stars. 10% of all of our proceeds are donated to the non-profit annually.